Word Origin & History

hustle 1684, "to shake to and fro" (especially of money in a cap, as part of a game called hustle-cap), metathesized from Du. hutselen, husseln "to shake, to toss," freq. of hutsen, var. of hotsen "to shake." "The stems hot-, hut- appear in a number of formations in both High and Low German dialects, all implying a shaking movement" [O.E.D.]. Meaning of "push roughly, shove" first recorded 1751. That of "hurry, move quickly" is from 1812. "To get in a quick, illegal manner" is 1840 in Amer.Eng.; "to sell goods aggressively" is 1887. The noun sense of "illegal business activity" is first recorded ...1963 in Amer.Eng. Hustler "thief" is first recorded 1825; in sense of "energetic person" (especially a salesman) it is from 1882; in sense of "prostitute" it dates from 1924.